Vigil means to stay awake and keep watch in the dark. In a season dominated by darkness, the vigil invites presence. While often touted as a passive, restful season, being awake to what’s going on in the dark requires awareness; it’s also where you’ll find the richest compost.

Every rite of passage and rebirth you experience, whether on a spiritual, emotional, physical, personal, or collective level, includes opportunities to grieve. Yet, talk of grief is often reserved for death and dying alone. While in truth, grief relates to any deep sorrow, and sorrow accompanies many of the rites of passage we walk through. Some of the rites of passage, rebirths, and deaths that come to mind that so often lack our grief are the onset of menstruation, puberty, childbirth, monetary changes, loss of friendships, moving, changes in important relationships, career or work changes, deaths, and collective changes like climate change and the pandemic, just to name a few.

It's time to call in our demons around death and dying. They need healing and nourishment. As we continue to walk through a world steeped in an ebb and flow of grief and death, we have an opportunity to address our relationship with death and dying. Not only do we need to address these wounds to better equip us to care for our dying, but I believe there's also a well of healing to be found within nourishing our wounds around death. Addressing our relationship to death and dying is one way to do this. Addressing how we care for the dying is another way to do this.

If you consider yourself intuitive, you've probably experienced a handful of unexplainable experiences. The kinds of situations you just knew were outside of the scope of what most would deem "normal." Even when you walk a spiritual path, some of these experiences can still be jarring. Why? Because it's not what most of us are taught growing up, it's not what most of society deems as "normal," and these experiences usually happen outside our usual physical senses.I don't usually get super personal here, but today I will be.